


so we designed our hells

by speckleshell



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 07:44:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckleshell/pseuds/speckleshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>written for the game of thrones vampire au ficathon<br/>prompt: origin stories</p>
            </blockquote>





	so we designed our hells

There's a bullet in his chest. He can feel it when he takes a breath, hard and cold beneath his ribs, a resistance against every pull of his lungs. It's getting harder to fill them. There's a thick liquid rising in his throat that he's not strong enough to cough loose. He wonders if any of the others in the basement are still alive. It's too dark to make out anything but shapes, formless shadows slumped across the ground. None of them had expected the guns.  
  
He takes a breath and it rattles in his lungs. Beside his head, something crunches. "The boy is still alive," a man says.  _Now,_  Viserys thinks,  _they'll pull out another gun and finish it. I'm going to die._  He's too weak to feel terror. He only has strength enough for dismay, and beneath that, relief. It's so hard to breathe with the bullet there, and he can't feel his legs.  
  
"The girl too," says another voice, across the room.  _Girl?_   Viserys wonders. His mouth opens to bite down on the  _D_  of his sister's name, but it gets caught in his throat, and for a dizzying moment his lungs won't fill. It's only when he's certain that he's gone, it's done, that they lift again and he sucks air in noisily.  
  
"I want this one," the man by his head says. "Two princes, that'll be."  
  
"I didn't know you were collecting us," the second man said mildly. There's a rustling from across the room, the scrape of boots on stone.  
  
Viserys feels a cold hand curve the back of his head and lift. The pressure it puts on his torso is enough to make his vision go black for a moment, and he gasps and stiffens with a whimpering whine. "Quiet now," the man holding him warns. "You just listen to me. You just...heh.  You drink your medicine. Can you do that?"  Viserys mouths air but can't find the voice to answer, and then something is pressed to his lips. It's cold, this thing, cold and solid, but there's a slit against his bottom lip that's leaking warmth. It slips into his mouth and blooms on his tongue. His lips part wider, and more drips into his mouth, wetting it, waking it, and Viserys realizes with sudden surprise that he has strength enough to lick and lap at the opening, and soon to bite at it, to tear and greedily suck down the hot, thick stuff that spills out. It doesn't taste like any medicine he's had before. "That's it," the man says. "Drink."

The more he drinks the stronger he feels, and he wonders if this is part of dying. In the same way some spoke about lights, or about floating above their bodies, he feels strength seeping into his limbs. It feels real. It feels  _good_. He tries to angle his mouth to tear the opening wider with his teeth, but they scrape ineffectually at the hard surface. Anger bubbles in his chest at being denied, and his hands lift to grab the thing tightly. How could something so cold hold something so warm? He realizes, suddenly, that the  _thing_  has a pulse, and when it twitches, he understands what it is he's drinking from.  
  
 _Life, I'm drinking his life, I'm drinking from his arm,_  he thinks, and in the gloom Viserys can begin to make out the face above him. It's a man's, old, carved with deep crags. His hair is long and thin and nearly brushes Viserys' forehead. He's watching him with something akin to pride, and it stirs a need in Viserys to prove himself. He bites down with all his strength and is rewarded with an immediate gush into his mouth, spilling out over his chin, and he moans and gulps at it hungrily. "Ah--!" the man hisses, then chuckles. "I like this one. He has his father in him."  
  
The second man's voice sounds strained. "You knew his father?"  
  
"I  _am_  his father," the first says sharply. "Best one he'll ever have. And the father to a prince," he smiles, baring fangs, "is a king."   
  
He's able to stand by the time they leave. The bullet slips out from beneath his tattered shirt and  _pings_  against the floor. At the second man's side his sister is standing too, her bloodsoaked dress still sodden and heavy, her white hair stained brown. The other bodies on the floor are motionless. He can smell the death on them. The first man takes him by the arm and pulls him towards the stairwell. "Come now. Before those soldiers come back."  
  
They're led to a house in the woods with boards nailed across the windows. Viserys glances to his sister as they walk, trying to catch her eyes, but she looks straight ahead. Does she feel the same way he does? His limbs feel more solid than they ever have, his veins fortified with fire. He wants to run. He wants to find one of the soldiers who'd lied to them and brought them down to that basement, who'd killed his family and tried to kill him too.  He wants to tear their skins like their bullets tore his; he wants them to scream.

They enter the house through a cellar door that the first man unlocks with an old, rusted key. Inside is dark, and four long boxes take up most of the floor. When Viserys nears one he realizes that they're not boxes at all, but coffins. "In," the man says, and shoves at Viserys' back. He quails and stumbles backwards.  
  
"No," Viserys says.. "I don't want to be in a coffin."  
  
"You'll do as you're told," the man growls.  
  
Beside him his sister slides the lid of one of the coffins to the side and climbs in without a word, her face a mask of steel calm. She doesn't so much as glance at him, but Viserys sees the action as a slap. They'd only just come back from death and now Daenerys is going to lengths to make him look foolish. Angrily, he turns on the first man and bares his fangs.  
  
"I  _won't--_ "  
  
The impact of being slammed against the wall knocks the air from his lungs, and Viserys gasps and gulps at the sudden pressure on his neck. The first man's hand is around his throat. Behind him, the second is frowning. "He's just frightened, Aerys," the second says, and Viserys struggles angrily.  _I'm not. I got shot and I got better. I almost died. I'm not afraid of_ anything _now._  
  
The first man releases him and he falls to his knees, coughing and wincing at the fading pain in his throat. Aerys moves away with a noise of disgust, and the second man kneels in front of Viserys and holds out his hand. "I know you don't want to be in a coffin," he says gently. "But I promise you it's alright. Just a bed with a lid. If you don't sleep in someplace covered, the sun will kill you. It'll hurt worse than the bullet." The second man doesn't look much like the first. His hair is pale too, like Viserys', like Dany's, but cropped short. He has kind, pale eyes under a heavy brow, and the bearing - Viserys thinks - of a nobleman.  
  
"Why did you help us?" Viserys asks hoarsely. He doesn't trust this man. He doesn't trust either of them. He'd liked Aerys at first - he'd liked the way he looked at him, as if he was a trophy. A prize.  _I am. I'm a prince._  But now things are going wrong; his captors are being cruel to him, and unreasonably kind to his sister.

The second man takes a deep breath and frowns. "Well," he starts, "A long time ago, Aerys - that's the man who fed you, that's your maker, your father now - a long time ago, he was a King. He lost his Kingdom. It was taken from him. And many years after that, mine was taken from me. He saved me like he saved you. You're his blood. The relation is distant, to be sure, but it's there. He didn't want his line to die out."  The man frowns. "I'm sorry about your family. They were past saving."  
  
Viserys can't meet his eyes.  _Your father now_ , the man said. His real father, dead on the floor of the basement, hadn't even gotten cold before he'd been replaced. His mother, she'd screamed when the soldiers had raised their guns. Rhaenys had had her kitten with her. It must have died too, a crumpled bit of fur amongst all the blood. So many bodies they'd left behind them.

"What's your name?" he asks the man quietly.  
  
"Rhaegar," he replies.  
  
Viserys looks down at his feet. The new shoes he'd been given for the portrait are caked in mud. They'd been glossy black before. Slowly, he stands up without accepting Rhaegar's hand and rounds the coffin beside his sister's. Aerys grunts and climbs into one at the far end; Rhaegar takes the last. Viserys waits for their lids to close before he leans over his sister's open coffin and grabs her by the arm. "He's not our father," he hisses in her ear. Daenerys won't look at him, but her jaw sets. "He's not," Viserys repeats. "If you forget about them, our family, if you forget, I'll kill you."  
  
He releases her arm and climbs into the coffin, knees knocking against the sides. It's not comfortable, and the wood is cold, but Viserys remembers how calmly his sister had climbed in and tells himself he can do the same. He pulls the lid shut, and tries not to think about bullets.


End file.
